The plain around the station was a mess of bomb craters; desperation measures but all misses. The glass dome itself was holed with a half-gross of shells fired into the station, and three of the big parabolic antenna-reflectors were drilled with four-inch holes but still electrically functional. Master fighters now because they were survivors, Nine and Seven faced one another cautiously. They raced in, faced one another harshly, like frigates sailing in to receive a heavy broadside, clashed, and came on through as Five and Three. Huston's crew circled in a mad melee, five of them in overwhelming odds now. They herded the Three high, caught them in an englobement, and made a flaming kill a hundred miles above the planet, then raced forward as Hoagland started to flee for his life, his campaign defeated. With the ice cap dotted with death and wreckage, Huston's command ship left the other four to guard the Upper Sky while he scouted the surface, using his power ruthlessly to cow Hoagland's separated survivors into abject surrender. Then, in complete victory, Huston raced his command ship in a vast circle around the damaged but still running Relay Station. It would go deadly-hard with anyone who tried to interfere at this instant. Huston's engineer snapped in the Z-wave. "Grayson! Grayson! Are you--are you?" The Z-wave receiver in Paul's ship brought this call. He snapped the toggle and said: "Huston? I'm riding the radio beam down to Alpha IV." "Bennington?" "I've got him on the Z-wave!" "Let me--connect me--" Paul reached for a cable with a double-ended plug and shoved both ends home in his patch-panel. "Mister President, here is Mr. Huston!" "Bennington! Bennington! You're ready?" On Terra, President Bennington nodded and said: "Any time." Huston said "Good. Thank God. Grayson, can we--?" Paul considered. "Can you get in touch with the Latham Alpha IV Station direct?" "Take some doing, but--" "President Bennington, the Galactic Link is almost complete. It's Z-wave via radio contact from Terra to me. It's Z-wave from me to Huston; and from Alpha IV to Neoterra it is again Z-wave via radio contact. As soon as Huston taps the radio beam from Alpha IV, we can get you through to--" A flash of fire--white-hot and vicious--blinded Huston and his crew. It killed all the men on Alpha IV friend and foe alike. The sound-- The sound was a flat and completely-gone silence. The contact had been destroyed before the link could convey any sound. Down from the black sky a single ship had driven at velocities too high for the radar to catch. It had come at near-light velocity from somewhere, had passed Alpha IV at a tangential altitude of a thousand miles--and had loosened something. The "Something" had been unbelievable tons of lithium hydride, neatly tamped and packed around a fissionable detonator.